Coach Sam Mitchell believes Blake Hardwick is one of the key cornerstones of his side, with the coach describing the impact of the reliable defender as "underrated".

Mitchell was full of praise for the 26-year-old following his shut down role on dangerous forward Cody Weightman last week which saw him held to just three disposals. 

"With Blake you know what you’re going to get every week - every now and then he'll lose a contest, but it's not too often - we know when he’s given a role, he’ll do it well," Mitchell said.

“The thing  about Blake that’s probably the underrated part is that everyone around him plays better when he’s there.

"I actually thought it was quite noticeable whenever he's off the ground, that we look a little bit more disorganised.

"He is one of those players we value enormously internally."

The Hawks are preparing to travel to Perth tomorrow ahead of their clash with Fremantle on Saturday night. 

Mitchell said there would be some flexibility with selection this week with a key duo set to be managed. 

"This time is a tricky part of the year (for us), we had a six-day break into a game at Marvel, and then into a Perth travel, so we knew we’d have to manage a couple players," Mitchell said.

"CJ (Changkuoth Jiath) and Punky (Luke Breust) have just been getting up for every game. So both will be managed this week to hopefully get their bodies back on top of it.

"Meek went back to Box Hill last week and did what you hoped he would do and that's play AFL standard footy in the VFL.

"We’ve got match committee later today. We’d love to play him against his old side, but we’ve got to get the team balance right first. Their defence is really strong and underrated. We need to be really careful about how we pick the team this week."

The coach also spoke on the news to come out of Tasmania, following the state being granted a 19th licence for an AFL team.

"I think they deserve a team, the passion that they have for the sport, I think it’s fantastic they have got a licence," Mitchell said.

"But there is a part of me, I’m the coach of Hawthorn. We’ve got over 8,000 members there and we’re going to be doing everything we can to keep them supporting Hawthorn.

"We’re supportive and it’s great they’ve got a licence. But I think my job is to try to retain as many of those Hawthorn members as we can and build a bit of a rivalry.

"Right now when we go there I feel as though it’s our home, but pretty soon that will be quite a different feeling which will be a challenge for the Hawthorn fans down there. Hopefully we can retain a lot of those 8,000-plus members.

"I think it would be sad and a waste of 20 years of work in the community to throw it away and step away completely from Tassie. I hope we can continue to build a relationship."

Hear more from Mitchell's press conference below.